


Always Come Back For You

by LadyEnterprise1701



Series: The Doctor and the Teacher [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, also the Paternoster Gang because they always take good care of my OTP, basically no plot, except that the Doctor is hurt and Clara takes care of him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 19:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17814155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyEnterprise1701/pseuds/LadyEnterprise1701
Summary: During what was supposed to be a peaceful respite after the Zygon Inversion, the Doctor is badly injured. Clara takes him to the safest place she can think of, hoping and praying he won't leave her again. Set between the tenth and eleventh chapters of my big Whouffaldi novel "This Life We Choose" (dash over to my profile to read Chapter 10, "Unspoken," if you haven't already!).





	Always Come Back For You

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this EXTREMELY fluffy one-shot on Valentine's Day, but it's been simmering in my head ever since I saw that beautiful, heartrending music video with Peter Capaldi in it (you know the one--my breath still catches a bit whenever I think about it--why yes, I am really that hopeless). What can I say? I basically just wanted Whouffaldi hurt/comfort/adorableness. 
> 
> And since this one-shot *is* related to "This Life We Choose," remember: the Doctor and Clara are totally married. My story, my rules. Enjoy :)

Clara Oswald half-dragged, half-carried the Doctor through the TARDIS doors. The Old Girl had thrown the doors wide-open as soon as she “saw” them hurtling through the chaos of screams and explosions and the piercing, robotic cries of _“The Doctor is escaping! The Doctor is escaping! Seek! Locate! Destroy!”_

“Shut ‘em!” Clara shrieked. “Shut the doors!” 

The doors slammed shut behind her. Clara nearly collapsed, her legs were so exhausted. Only the Doctor’s dead weight motivated her to stay upright. She couldn’t let him hit the floor…couldn’t let him hurt himself any more than he already was… 

_Oh, God, please let him be okay._

“Clara…” 

“Hush,” Clara snapped, dragging him up the steps to the console. “Don’t say a word. I’ve got you. Just hold on a quick sec…”

The Doctor groaned, blinked, tried to get his feet under him again. Clara held her breath and pressed a firm hand against his chest, trying to support him. A look of gritty determination slipped into his glassy, red-rimmed eyes—and promptly slipped out again. His eyes rolled. He slid towards the floor. 

“No no no no!” Clara cried, trying to hold him up—but she didn’t stand a chance against six-feet-plus of limp Time Lord. He crashed to the floor with a ragged gasp, his hands fumbling towards his chest. Clara dropped to her knees beside him. 

“What do I do?” she begged. “Please, tell me, what do I do?”

The Doctor forced his eyes open. “Not what I…planned…to make up for the Zygons…”

“Don’t you dare apologize. Not now. You never even had anythin’ to make up for, anyway. It was hardly your fault that a Zygon double tricked you into thinkin’ she was me.”

His eyelids fluttered again. “Wanted a…a peaceful trip…this time…”

“Okay—you— _shush._ ” Clara sprang to her feet and splayed her hands on the console, fixing her pleading eyes on the radiant center column. “Tell me what to do!” 

The TARDIS beeped, and an image of the medbay flashed onto one of the screens. To Clara’s relief, the image also came with a floorplan—and she saw immediately that the TARDIS had moved it _much_ closer than its normal location. Clara pressed her hands to her lips and blew the TARDIS a grateful kiss, then ran down to the medbay as fast as she could. 

Rummaging through supplies, she finally managed to catch her breath. It _had_ been a day. The  Doctor had been so sweet this morning—or was it yesterday?—when he suggested a trip to this quiet little planet “so far from trouble,” he insisted, “that I think even _you_ might find it boring.”

“Boring?!” Clara had laughed, winding her arms around his neck. “Have you seen the two of us, mister? We bring the troublemakers to _our_ yard. There’s bound to be somethin’ to keep us occupied.”

He had grinned boyishly at that— _had she ever told him how he looked so much younger when he smiled?—_ and laced his own fingers around the back of her waist. (He never hesitated to touch her now. He certainly hadn’t had any reservations about it yesterday, once they left the two Osgoods behind. The way he’d held her and kissed her over and over again made her realize, with a pang, just how badly their encounter with Bonnie and her rebels had frightened him.) “Well, all the same, I wouldn’t _mind_ a quiet day with you. Just with you, Clara Oswald.”

“Look at you, gettin’ all domestic,” she’d teased. But he’d only chuckled and stroked her hair and kissed her like she was something infinitely precious. He’d almost been _reverent_ about it. 

Now Clara blinked back tears as she heaped bandages and medicines into her aching arms and ran back to the console room. Their idyllic retreat had turned into a raging battlefield. The government of the planet where the Doctor had reserved a quiet garden for their personal use had been in secret league with the Daleks. True to form, the Daleks had shown up in a frenzy. And the Doctor could never refuse a fight with the Daleks—especially if the bloodthirsty machines exacted their revenge on the innocent populace when they initially couldn’t locate the time traveler and his young human wife. 

Clara had simply assumed (as one does, when one travels with the Doctor long enough) that everything would turn out fine. It always did. He’d save the day with a flash of his blue-grey eyes and a ferocious, defiant speech in that beautiful Scottish brogue of his. 

It was only when he had to retrieve a couple of petrified children from their crumbling house that she got really, truly scared. He got the kids out, thank God…but he’d only just emerged from the house and the little ones had only just crumpled into Clara’s waiting arms when a government agent, in league with the Daleks, fired some kind of massive gun at him. The slug had lodged huge and jagged in the Doctor’s chest, far too close to one of his hearts—and it was this that Clara now had to deal with. 

The TARDIS, desperate to comfort her pain-ridden Thief any way she could, had dimmed the lights in the console room by the time Clara returned. Clara spread her medical supplies on the floor and knelt beside the Doctor. He had his eyes closed, but his forehead was all knotted. She could tell he was clenching his teeth. _Probably tryin’ to disassociate from the pain_. She’d seen him do it one too many times.

“Doctor?” she whispered. She ran her fingers through his hair. “Doctor, you awake?”

He managed a feeble nod, but didn’t open his eyes or unclamp his lips. His skin had turned a disturbing ash-grey. Clara carefully peeled back one side of his blood-soaked hoodie. The sight of gleaming, jagged metal and torn skin turned her stomach. 

“I’m gonna have to cut away your clothes,” she said weakly. “Bye-bye, Holey Jumper.”

The Doctor opened one eye, just a crack. “Oh, Clara Oswald, you are merciless.”

She forced a smile and seized a pair of scissors. He lay so still while she cut away the clothes. She didn’t know that she’d _ever_ seen him so still, with this face _or_ the last—and she didn’t like it. Oh God, she hated it. She was pretty sure she loved him best when he acted like a kid who’d had too much sherbet, all smiles and brilliant eyes and giddy curiosity. 

The wound looked even worse without the shredded jumper, probably because now she could  see the way his chest quivered with each painful breath. She tried to wipe away the blood, but more oozed out every time he exhaled. That slug would have to come out… _but what’ll happen once I’ve got it out? I can’t let him bleed to death! Oh God, please, please help me…_

“Clara.” The Doctor spoke in a whispery gasp. “Help…help…”

She bent closer. “I’m gonna help you, Doctor, I promise. Just hold on—”

“ _No._ ” He groped for her hand. “Get…help. _Please_. You can’t…you can’t do this…alone…”

For a brief, embarrassing moment Clara was offended. But then she glanced at the wound and the blood and heard the way he breathed so shallow, and knew that she’d never seen him like this. She smoothed his hair back, brushed a bit of rubble out of it. The Doctor let his eyes flutter shut under her touch. 

“Don’t you dare regenerate on me, old man,” she hissed. 

He smiled wearily. “Yes, Boss.”

Clara’s eyes welled with tears. She leaned her forehead against his for one moment and kissed his chapped lips for two (or maybe three). Then she staggered to her feet and clambered to navigation… _and_ to the telepathic circuits. 

“Okay,” she whispered, digging her fingers in. “Take me to London.”

 

————

 

The TARDIS guessed which London, thankfully. She knew from the memories being fed into her through Clara’s fingers. The only people in the entire universe who’d cared for a Time Lord with such discretion, tenderness, _and_ a no-nonsense refusal to indulge his inner man-child still lived on Paternoster Row…in the 1890’s. 

As soon as the time machine landed Clara bolted for the doors. The TARDIS hadn’t taken any chances: she’d parked right in the middle of Madame Vastra’s lush, greenery-filled parlor. Clara stepped out, freezing at the sight of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax in the middle of their afternoon tea. 

“Clara!” Vastra cried, rising to her feet with a brilliant smile that vanished as soon as she took a longer, closer look at the young woman. “For heaven’s sake, what—?”

“He’s hurt,” Clara gasped. “And I—I didn’t know where else to go…”

For the first time since she saw the Doctor collapse, her own knees wobbled; she gripped the TARDIS door and forced herself to stay upright. The next thing she knew, Jenny had wrapped her arms around her and coaxed her to a chair. Vastra and Strax rushed into the TARDIS. When they came out, they had the Doctor on a stretcher they must’ve fetched from the medbay.

“Jenny,” Vastra ordered, “we’ll need the tea things put away and the table cleared for surgery. Clara, pop back into the TARDIS and fetch those supplies on the floor. We’ll need all the Time Lords’ medical advantages for this one, I’m afraid.”

Clara and Jenny obeyed without a word: when Vastra was in her take-charge mood, you didn’t question her. Within minutes the Doctor lay on the table, still so quiet and grey that it frightened Clara far more than all the blood. Vastra leaned over him with a white surgical mask over her strangely-elegant, reptilian face; with her white-gloved hands she seized one tool after another. Jenny assisted her while Strax monitored the lights, which were decidedly _not_ of Victorian origin. 

“What happened?” Vastra asked as she carefully probed the wound. 

Clara gulped. She sat in a chair next to the table, absently stroking the Doctor’s hair. “Oh, you know…the usual. Trouble seems to find us no matter where we go.”

She tried to laugh and couldn’t manage it. Vastra glanced at her over the surgical mask. Jenny placed a pair of forceps in her waiting hand. 

“This is a projectile from a Carnotesian bazooka,” Vastra muttered. “It’s pierced his lung, but thankfully not his left heart. We’ll use the bone knitter for his sternum, but as for the lung…”

“What?” Clara begged. “Will it be okay?”

Vastra gave her head a slight shake that seemed more uncertain than negative. “Once I remove the slug, his body _should_ subconsciously make use of some regenerative energy to heal the lung. Or he’ll wake up and do it himself.”

“You don’t think…” Clara swallowed hard, curled her fingers tighter around his curls than she intended. “You don’t think _he’ll_ regenerate, do you?”

Vastra said nothing. Jenny shot Clara a tender, reassuring look. 

“Time Lords are tough old birds, Miss,” she said kindly. “It takes a great deal of hurt for them to go to _that_ extreme.”

“And if he does regenerate,” Strax added cheerfully, “we will take necessary precautions and fortify this house against the madness that comes upon Time Lords when they assume a new face!”

Jenny glared at him. “Oi! Can’t you see she doesn’t _want_ him to regenerate?”

“Although surely,” Vastra said, “she would not object if it was the only way to save his life?”

Clara’s throat burned. So did her eyes. She wanted to burst into tears, scream at Vastra not to give her _this_ lecture again, and bury her face in the Doctor’s chest—only to wake up and find that this was all just a bad dream. 

_I can’t do it again. I love him, THIS him! Please, Doctor, stay with me, please…_

Vastra grabbed hold of the slug with the forceps. Clara turned her face away and scooted closer to the Doctor, running the backs of her fingers along his cheek until she heard the _clink_ of the bullet in a porcelain bowl. Then came the whir of instruments as Vastra and Jenny did their best to repair the heavily-bleeding wound. But Clara paid no attention to any of it. She rested her head against the Doctor’s and closed her eyes, hoping that somehow, some way, he could hear her silently begging him to stay alive. 

She had no idea that both Vastra and Jenny were watching her with discreet sympathy…and  approval.

 

————

 

By the time darkness fell over Victorian London, they had moved the Doctor upstairs to the room  where he’d spent his very first night with this face. His shoulder had been bandaged, his arm held in a sling. Clara refused to leave him, not even to eat. When Vastra came in with a tray of food, Clara still sat by the bedside, chewing her nails and staring at the Doctor’s sleeping face. 

“I thought you might be hungry,” Vastra said, setting the tray on the chest of drawers. “How is he?”

“No change,” Clara whispered. She shivered, drawing the shawl Jenny gave her closer around her shoulders. “It’s so surreal, bein’ back here again…and with him sick in bed.”

Vastra approached slowly. “And you, my dear, seem to feel quite differently towards him than you did last we saw you.”

Clara looked up, her big brown eyes widening. If the Doctor were awake he’d be telling her to get them under control. It always irritated her, yet she’d give anything to hear him say it now. Her chin wobbled at the thought. 

“I love him,” she whispered. “I love him so, _so_ much. If anythin’ happened to him…”

Her voice broke; she squeezed her eyes shut and clapped a hand to her mouth. Vastra closed the distance between them and laid a hand on her shoulder. Clara was suddenly too afraid and  too weary to care what the regal Silurian thought of her. She simply threw her arms around Vastra’s waist and hid her face in the folds of Vastra’s black satin bodice. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, it’s just…I can’t lose him again, _I can’t!_ We’ve been so happy and he only just…he _just_ told me last night that he loved me…”

“Only last night?” Vastra repeated, wonderingly. 

Clara sniffled hard and sat up. “I mean, I’ve known it for months. We hardly ever need to say things to each other—usually—but last night…yesterday he thought I’d died, but I didn’t, and when we were finally alone together last night he broke down and he…he said it. Over and over again, like he was tryin’ to make up for all the times he didn’t say it. God help me, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more in love with him.”

Vastra hummed to herself and stroked the young woman’s hair. “Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that you are _exhausted_.”

Clara let out a weak laugh. “I’m so tired, every bone in my body aches.”

“Then sleep. Lie beside him. I suspect he’ll heal better if he knows you’re with him. And you, my dear, will sleep far better hearing your husband’s heartbeats in your ear.”

Clara’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth, but Vastra laid a quick finger over her lips. 

“Hush. I knew as soon as I saw the way you looked at him.” Vastra cupped Clara’s chin in her fingertips. “Being the Doctor’s wife must be a mighty responsibility…and yet, what an indescribable joy.”

A tear rolled down Clara’s cheek, but she managed a small, agreeing smile. The joy must have shone through the sorrow, too: Vastra’s own smile grew bright and glad, as if she liked what she saw very much. She pressed a light, motherly kiss to Clara’s forehead before gliding out, shutting the door behind her. Clara pulled in a breath and wiped her face. The Doctor hadn’t moved. She stood, tiptoed around to the other side of the bed. She was already wearing a light, sleeveless nightgown Jenny had let her borrow. Now she got underneath the blankets, careful not to jostle the mattress as she inched closer to the Doctor. She rested her head on his good shoulder and slid one hand over his exposed chest, her palm right over one heartbeat. 

It thudded steadily…like a drumbeat. 

“I love you,” Clara whispered, tipping her head back so she could gaze at his profile. “You’re my hero, you know that?”

No answer—not that she expected one. Clara nuzzled her cheek against his skin and closed her eyes. 

She must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew a bird sang outside the window and a pale, golden light streamed through the curtains. She inhaled, squinted, rubbed her eyes.  The Doctor hadn’t moved in the night; her hand still lay on his chest. 

“Mmmph,” Clara groaned, sitting up. She ached—probably from all that running yesterday—and her head hurt. “I hope Jenny makes coffee.”

“The best in Victorian London,” a hoarse voice croaked behind her. Clara gasped and whirled. The Doctor still hadn’t moved, but his eyes were open and he wore the weariest yet warmest of smiles. Clara dove back down beside him, forgetting to be slow and careful. The Doctor winced. 

“Sorry, sorry,” she gasped, cupping his cheek in her hand. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

The Doctor frowned, stared at the ceiling. “Like hell.”

Clara pursed her lips. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Well, if you said you felt fine and dandy I’d know you were just tryin’ to make me feel better—which would’ve had the exact opposite effect.” 

He smirked, closed his eyes briefly. “Can’t sneak anything past you, can I, Teach?”

“Not a thing.” Clara cupped his face in both her hands. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

He opened his eyes again and looked steadily at her. “Well, I didn’t have much choice, did I? Not with _your_ begging.”

Clara drew back an inch or two. “My what?”

The Doctor tilted his head to one side on the pillow, half-amused, half-exasperated. He raised his good arm and tapped her nose with one fingertip. 

“I could _hear_ you. In my head. Beggin’ me not to leave you.”

“During…” Clara gulped. “During the surgery?”

He raised his eyebrows and tucked her hair behind her ear. Clara lowered her gaze.

“Sorry,” she said. “Must’ve been awful mental traffic. I doubt I was very eloquent about it.”

The Doctor chuckled gingerly, trying not to disturb his injury. “You don’t ever have to be eloquent with me, Clara. I always know what you’re thinkin’ long before you say it, anyway.”

She snorted. “Well, before you get on your high horse about that, you silly handsome genius, you should know I can do the same thing with _you_.”

He chuckled more heartily at that and promptly grimaced in pain. Clara shushed him, stroking  his hair and cheek until the discomfort passed. But as soon as he relaxed again she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his in a long, gentle kiss. She knew, once he responded in kind, that there might be several more days of recovery, but he was back. Oh, thank God, her Doctor was back. 

“I love you,” she whispered. “You always come back for me, you hear?”

He brought his hand up to her face, opened his eyes just enough to look at her, and smiled. “Always comin’ back for you, Boss.”

 

THE END

 


End file.
